Because of the quantity of starch in flour, potatoes and rice, it is obvious that one should not eat freely of more than one of these at the same meal, else the digestive organs will be overworked in converting the starch into sugar and the liver overworked in converting the sugar into glycogen and back again into sugar; and the liver will be overloaded in storing it up. By far the best plan is to eat but one cereal at a meal.
Rice contains no gluten, hence it cannot be raised in bread.
Corn (maize) is a native of America and has been one of the most extensively used cereals. Corn bread and corn meal mush were important foods with the early settlers, partly because they are nutritious and partly because the corn meal was easily prepared at the mill and was cheap. The germ of the corn is larger in proportion than the germs of other grains, and it contains much fat; therefore it is heating. For this reason, it is strange that corn bread is so largely used by inhabitants of the southern states. It is a more appropriate food for winter in cold climates.
Because of the fat in the germ, cornmeal readily turns rancid, and, on this account, the germ is separated and omitted from many cornmeal preparations.
Hulled corn, sometimes called lye hominy, is one of the old-fashioned ways of using corn. In its preparation, the skin is loosened by steeping the corn in a weak solution of lye, which gives it a peculiar flavor, pleasing to many.
Cornmeal mush is a valuable breakfast food.
Pop corn. The bursting of the shell in popping corn is due to the expansion of the moisture in the starch, occasioned by the heat.
Green sweet corn does not contain the same proportion of starch as cornmeal, it being, in its tender state, mostly water. It is laxative, because it is eaten with the coarse hull, which causes more rapid peristalsis of the intestines.